A Collection in the Library of Virginia
Accession Number 45015
Library of Virginia
The Library of Virginia 800 East Broad Street Richmond, Virginia 23219-8000 USA Phone: (804) 692-3888 (Archives Reference) Fax: (804) 692-3556 (Archives Reference) Email: archdesk@lva.virginia.gov(Archives) URL: http://www.lva.virginia.gov/
Edmund Flagg was born in Chester, New Hampshire on 3 July 1786. He graduated from Dartmouth College in 1806, and was admitted
to the bar in 1810, setting up practice in Wiscasset, Massachusetts (now Maine). A year later, Flagg went into partnership
with Silas Lee (1760-1814), and was appointed Register of Probate in 1812. The following year, he married Harriet Payson.
They had two children. In 1815, Flagg traveled to the West Indies to recuperate from poor health. He died in St. Croix on
14 December 1815.
His son, Edmund Flagg, was born in Wicasset on 24 November 1815. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1835, and then moved
to Louisville, Kentucky with his mother and sister. From 1836 to 1837, he taught school in St. Louis, and was admitted to
the bar there. He then moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, where he practiced law, and was editor of the Vicksburg Whig . From 1842 to 1843, he edited the Marietta Gazette in Marietta, Ohio, and then the St. Louis Gazette from 1844 to 1845. In 1850, Flagg was appointed United States consul for the port of Venice. He was superintendent of the
Office of Statistics in the Department of State, and 1861, appointed head of the Copyright Library in the United States Patent
Office. He retired in 1870, and moved to "Highland View" in Falls Church, Virginia. Flagg wrote numerous plays and books during
his career, including The Far West: or, A Tour Beyond the Mountains (1838) and Venice: The City of the Sea From the Invasion of Napoleon in 1797 to the Capitulation of Radetzky in 1849 (1853). Edmund Flagg married Kate Adeline Gallaher (1839-1926) on 18 February 1862. They had four children. He died on 1
November 1890, and is buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Falls Church, Virginia.
Papers, 1776-1949. of the Flagg family of Falls Church, Virginia, and Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, Ohio, and
Washington, D.C., namely Edmund Flagg (1786-1815) and his son Edmund Flagg (1815-1890). Includes accounts and receipts, agreements,
clippings, composition books, correspondence, cyphering books, deeds, diaries, drafts of books and plays, estate papers, tax
papers, records from the younger Flagg's work as editor of the Marietta Gazette , orations, school exercises, and scrapbooks.
There is a good deal of correspondence with John Henry (accused spy during the War of 1812), Samuel Livermore (legal writer),
and Eloise Payne (sister of playwright John Howard Payne). The collection also includes manuscript drafts of Flagg's books
and plays, including Sketches of a Traveller (1836) and The Far West: or a Tour Beyond the Mountains (1838), Ruy Blas: Marie of Suabia or The Flower of the Rhine (1845), Venice: The City of the Sea, From the Invasion by Napoleon in 1797 to the Capitulation to Radetzky, in 1849 (1853), and De Molai: The Last of the Military Grand Masters of the Order of the Templar Knights (1888). There are a large amount of clippings in the collection, many of which are contained in scrapbooks, that are reviews
and notices of Flagg's work.
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